Thursday, July 24, 2008

My last iPod Log included a YouTube clip of the great English folk-rock band Fairport Convention, showing a film or videotape of the group, at the time (1967 or 8) when they were recording their first album, doing a song called "Time Will Show the Wiser". In my post, I noted that the woman singing harmony is Judy Dyble, who left Fairport after the first album. This prompted an appreciative comment from sam x, whose blog, Be a Goddess music, promotes the work of women musicians. Since I hadn't heard of Ms. Dyble post-Fairport, I assumed she was one of those promising young singers who made a few brilliant recordings then disappeared. However, Sam informed me that Judy is still recording as a solo artist. Also, I found on Be a Goddess this clip of Judy, along with Vicki Clayton and various present and former members of Fairport, doing "Si tu dois partir", a rendition into French of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", which was one of the cuts on Fairport's third album, Unhalfbricking:

Of the two women onstage, Judy is on the left, wearing glasses, and Vicki is on the right.

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About Me

I narrowly missed being that rara avis for my generation, a native Floridian, when the U.S. Army closed its hospital in Tallahassee, shortly before my mother’s due date. She went home, and I was born in a city renowned in Vaudeville humor: Altoona, Pennsylvania. In that chilly March of 1946, the first sound to reach my infant ears from outside the hospital walls was likely the shriek of a steam locomotive’s whistle. This could explain my lifelong love of trains. Four surface crossings of the Atlantic in childhood also led to fascination with ships and the sea.

My father was in the military, so our family (I was an only child) went from place to place often in my early years. I was in England from the ages of five to eight (the first newspaper headline I recall reading is “KING DIES”; the King in question being George VI, father of Elizabeth II) and began my formal education in a rural county council (what we call “public”) school, where I probably escaped having my bottom caned only because the headmistress feared creating an international incident. Other places where I lived while growing up were Miami, San Antonio, Cheyenne, the Florida panhandle and Tampa.

I graduated from the University of South Florida (B.A., 1967) and Harvard Law School (J.D., 1970). After that, apart from two years' duty in the U.S. Army, I practiced law in New York City. I worked in law firms and as in-house counsel, and served on the boards of directors of an insurer and a reinsurer. On a volunteer basis I now write for Brooklyn Heights Blog and the Brooklyn Bugle, and also publish my own blog, Self-Absorbed Boomer, which has been described as "relentlessly eclectic." In 1991, I married Martha Foley, an historian and archivist. We live in Brooklyn Heights. Our daughter, Elizabeth Cordelia Scales, also lives in Brooklyn.